Unveiling
by jenni3penny
Summary: "He is causing her pain in a way – and it seems she's decided to address that with a short limit of patience and tear reddened eyes. Right in the middle of her kitchen, when she's still covered in black and pale raw." Discussion of Wallowski, post Claire's funeral...
1. Chapter 1

"Are you finished with her yet?" she asks it blithely, as though she's just remarking that the shine's worn off his dress shoes (though, it hasn't – wasn't gonna look like a complete tosser at a funeral that was so important to her, was he?).

He loses track of the trajectory of his hand for a moment, pauses in handing her the coffee he's just made her and clips his head sharply up in her direction. "What?"

"Are you done?" Her table looks large and lonely when she's the only one sitting at it but somehow... somehow she manages to hold it as her own. She's leaned forward and he turns a look over the hand she has half curled against its surface just before she lifts both palms into taking the cup. "With her?"

Wallowski, no doubt. Of course, Wallowski. And he leans the cup into hers, the other palm rising to assure that she's got the warming ceramic tucked tightly into her hands. Usually he'd let go (let go of her hands, let go of this discussion). Can't rely on 'usually' when she seems so vulnerably open to him, though. When, for _once_ since shortly after they met, he can lift every emotion off her face like just another veil after the other. For _once_ she's letting him - and it's absolutely astounding to him.

Disgust (for Wallowski herself? Nah, not really. For his repeated attachment to said Wallowski? Most likely.).

Annoyance as she lets him hold her hands (at his feigned confusion, no doubt).

Acceptance as he squeezes heat against them (that she will not, nor never, change him).

Pain when he stays unmoving (and he's absolutely _un_ sure if its a leftover from Claire's funeral mass or if he's somehow inadvertently wounded her while trying to do anything but).

He cups his palms around hers, keeps them closed against the backs of her smaller hands as his shoulders lift in a minute shrugging that says more than his silence does – or it would, if she could hear in variations of quiet rather than intonations and vibrations of sound. Cal lets his breath shush through his lips before he meets her eyes again, finds their accusing darkness even in the grief that still reddens them up.

He _is_ causing her pain in a way – and it seems she's decided to address that with a short limit of patience and tear reddened eyes. Right in the middle of her kitchen, when she's still covered in black and pale raw. He loosens her hands instantly and suddenly, like he's been chastised.

She _is_ letting him see it, finally - the fact that having Wallowski around is scraping her edges up.

"Been finished for awhile, Gill," he admits quietly, shaking his eyes away from her under the realization that the small victory of forcing this particular admittance tastes like acidic and burning bile.

He hadn't necessarily been trying to hurt her. Hadn't been aiming for jealousy, had he? Well, maybe a bit. But, in the long run, in the big picture, a reaction was all he'd wanted – something that'd maybe nudge them closer together rather than wedging up between them and keeping them farther and farther apart, over and over again it seemed. But not like this. Not after she'd made a meekly groaned sound of need and hurt and desperation all at once while grasping at his hand at a funeral.

"No, it hasn't," Gill counters easily, more relaxed than he expects. "You're still - "

"S'just a game now, love." And it is, isn't it? It's back and forth and push and pull and reaching out of bounds. "You know I can't keep from - "

"Stop playing."

"Just like that?" he demands quietly, because her hands are still minutely shaking and she's still so layered in black that even her hair seems dark, her skin unnaturally pale, her voice cold. "Maybe the game's just getting good."

She glares pointedly up at him and it's nothing new, that look. But her tone, her unrepentant demand... "Do you love her?"

 _Gillian... do you love her?_

"Course not."

 _Of course I do, darling...Of course I love her._

"Then stop playing."

Shoulda been a request but she's making it a demand instead – and who's she to make demands on where he puts what and when? Not like she's using any extra bits of him on her down time. "Why's this one bother you so much, then? Huh?"

"Because she keeps coming back." She presses up sharply from the table and he focuses on the coffee and how it sloshes slightly under the echoes of her movement, watches as it rings around the cup but doesn't spill. "You called her."

Right, but only to expedite things. Only to pull every string he could give a tug on. "Gill - "

"I called you and you..." she scoffs off a breathy noise, shaking her head away from his interested watching, "you called _her_."

"Because I knew I could get her to - "

"And you and I?" Her interruption is rampantly unchecked and he watches it roll on with fascination, breathing down some patience as she continues because _this_ is absolutely unheard of, this level of raggedly emotional attachment she's showing him. "We were still the ones to do her job. Cal, she's not... never mind."

He blinks confusion, surprise at how quickly she's gone from fighting him to detaching. "Not what?"

"Nothing." The coffee she tidily lifts back to her lips isn't nearly enough distraction. Not nearly. She'll need a wall the size of China itself if she wants to bar up this particular conversation – not now that she's started it the way she has. Not when his pride's been tweaked just about as sharply as his affection for her.

Not when she's emotionally cracking and he's watching it happen (she's letting him _see_ it) and he's legitimately and inexplicably torn between wanting to hear everything she has to say on the subject and just shutting her up with a ridiculously hard shag against her kitchen counter. Fucking gorgeous, she is. And especially when she's being so self righteously strong and uncharacteristically hypocritical and sweetly vulnerable all at once. Hell, she can be a mighty bitch sometimes. And he _loves_ it. She'd have to be to match him at his fighting weight most days.

"Not good enough for me?" He dips his upper body stubbornly into her turned glance, forcing her head back as she draws the cup back out from between them. "That what you're implyin'?"

"Damn it, Cal." This time the slosh tips over the edge of the cup as she thunks it down and makes a pattern on her table that might otherwise draw his interest but he's too busy studying the furious but beautifully jealous strain on her facial features. "She's not me."

He stands still and astonished for a moment, lips parted in absolute surprise – that she'd say it, that she'd make the comparison, that she'd go _there_ without his instigation.

So, yes, right then. He was finished with Wallowski, for good.

Because the demolished look on her ends him, and it (whatever _it_ may have become), completely.

Because Wallowski _isn't_ her. And that's the crux of the thing...

"Oh, I know that for a fact already. Trust in that." He bitterly agrees into the way she's watching him with the accusation still dark between them. "No, she's no saint. Then, neither am I. Right?"

She flinches and moves closer all at once and he can't help but see it as a sort of challenge, a teary gauntlet getting flung to the perfect tile of her kitchen. Because suddenly her face is impenetrable and steel to him, absolutely composed as her voice cools. "Are you finished with her?"

Cal shrugs under her near threat of posture. "Depends, I s'pose."

"No more," she murmurs quietly, the blue of her eyes so dark as she lifts a hand to the center of his chest and presses into the buttons of his dress shirt.

That kicks up his ire again, and rightly so. Like she's got any bit of say in it, even as she fiddles with the buttons on his shirt. Not when she's the master of pushing and pulling herself - keeps drawing a damn line and pulling him playfully over it so that she can wave behind him and give him a thwack for crossing over it. "And because why? We're not - "

Kissing. With tongue. They are, actually - and suddenly and hungrily. How they went from him intentionally being a shit to her kissing him so strongly, so angrily but desperately and with both hands flat to his stubbled cheeks and... Christ, she tastes like sweetened everything. Coffee with sweet cream and the little Butterscotch bit she'd been silently sucking on in the car and her tongue against his tastes so much better than he figured it might. Especially when she moans against his lips and leans closer, scrubs her palms warmer against his jaw and lets him suck against her tongue.

By the time he really realizes what the hell is happening she's nipping against his bottom lip and one of her hands has curled up under his throat and he has to try to rattle the fog from his brain just to get his hands even to hers. He curls his fingers along her jaw and presses back, not wanting to stop her even as he slows their mouths apart.

"Bloody hell, Gillian." His voice betrays him by groaning when he doesn't want her hearing anything of the sort and he catches her jaw, forces her head back far enough that she has to meet his eyes or turn her head away from the touch entirely. "What're you doin'? Huh? You lost your mind?"

She just blinks, calm, terrifyingly serene despite pink and roughed lips. "Are you done? With her?"

The way she's looking at him... plenty of women have given him that same fired and glazed look before. It's the blankness behind the blue glittering that worries him – the emptiness behind the gloss that says she looking more for a rough fucking against a wall (a table, a couch, a counter, or any mostly stable surface). More physical distraction than emotional acceptance. More unleashed lust than anything near the almost love he thinks maybe he sees on her any other time.

Well, and he'll be the one well and truly fucked if he gives her what she seems to actually be looking for, won't he? He won't be giving a goddamn inch (pun not necessarily intended but apropos, yeah?) til her eyes come back to the blue softness that he knows, the wide warmth that strains him weakened on an hour to hour schedule.

But... aw, _Hell_. Who is he kidding? Really?

He can't keep this answer from her, it's already passing his lips despite the fact that the more stubborn parts of him would prefer she squirmed a little. "Completely."

A tenth of a second – a fraction of teeny tiny time – that's all the smile he needs to see.

Because it's so utterly honest of her - and _stunning_.

"No more," Gillian nods knowledge into rubbing his jacket lapel between fingers and thumb.

"No more." He agrees as he watches her avoid his eyes, watches her cover her pleasure first with fidgeting and then slow simmering heat as she shakes her hair out of her face and brushes his jacket flat against his chest. "Cross my heart, darling."

"Cal - "

"Not gonna happen like this though." He amends softly, cradling her fingers off his shirt so he can squeeze against them as she exhales. "You want - "

"You." Gill breathes out cautiously. "I need _you_ , Cal."

 _Those words_. Those words and the world has become blindingly surreal. He has an instantaneous flashing image of that silly owl from those candy adverts – 'How Many Licks Does It Take'? How many kicks to the balls can he take before he gives in or gives up? Not many more. Especially not when she's using that tone of voice, not when she's grabbing onto him and holding instead of shoving him back or stalling him still.

Still... _still_. This is Gillian. And this is his brain telling him... not like this.

In every moment he'd ever considered something like this... it was _not_ like this.

"To what? T'hurt you? Make y'feel something? Not like that," Cal murmurs intently, shakes his head against it. "Won't be me doin' that. You find it somewhere else."

"You are such a hypocritical son of a bitch sometimes."

Well... it's true, and she's right, and her eyes are sparked dark.

And he'd like to drag her dress off her and let his mouth mark down the entire stretch of her throat and all over those surprisingly symmetrical looking (mouth watering) breasts.

Not to mention that the cut of a black hemline across her thighs will have him daydreaming taking the backs of her knees in hand and just... well, he's always had a pretty active imagination. Fuel to the furious fucking fire.

"And you are gorgeous right now." Both his hands dig down on her hips and jerk her into him, draw her up tighter so that those slim hands are pressed on his chest and keeping them leveled upright together. "Never wanted you more, know that?"

In rapid order, from her eyes to her pretty lips: surprise, pleasure, fear, and more pleasure. Arousal. That's his best guess, though. Really. Because she's the one woman he's taught more than anyone else, more than any of his proteges, more than any of their employees. She's the woman he's made into his own self fulfilling prophecy of mystery. He's made her his blind spot, maybe half intentionally so...

"Need you - just as much." The admission goes grating off his throat a little quieter than he means it but she hears him with her wide eyes searching over his face just as well as she hears every tinted intonation in his voice. "But I got practice with patience, Gill. When it comes to you? I'm virtue fucking incarnate, yeah?"

"Cal - "

"Not like this, darling." It's a pleading argument but one she seems to suddenly understand, one that makes her blush completely as she blinks her eyes shut and squeezes them tighter closed. "Huh? Not like this."

One nod and she's swallowing in unspoken agreement. "Just... don't leave."

He smiles bittersweet, feels how repetitively worn but still entirely genuine it is, "M'not goin' anywhere, Gill."

She blinks rapidly at first and he can tell that she's shaking herself back to horrified realization, embarrassment forcing her eyes away from him and self reproach coloring her cheeks as she unconsciously wipes the pads of her fingers along one of her cheekbones. Cal frowns at the rise of shame over her features and touches the opposite side of her face in the same manner, following the pattern of her own touches with more gentleness than she's applying.

"Dislike goin' places without you anyhow, right?"

She weakly half smiles in response to the chipped off words and he matches the movement, sees that she's leaning into his hand before he feels the full press of her cheek against his fingers.

She's still flushed hot but he just keeps still on the warmth, watching her as she closes her eyes and buries her face farther into his hand.

"C'mon." He dips his head to the side even while his thumb is rubbing the rise of her cheekbone. "Drink your coffee."

"You'll stay?"

An army of rabid monkeys couldn't pry him off her at the moment and she's still worried he's on his way out the door? Sometimes her distrust of his intentions, of his actions... sometimes he wants to feel offended by it. But then, sometimes, he draws it out of her, yeah? And intentionally, he supposes. To keep them wedged apart. To keep her up and him down. Him out front and her safely tucked behind.

Except now... now she's wedged so tightly into him that he's near a hundred percent sure she's got a grand idea of how big his... _adoration_ of her is. Namely because it's pressed flush against her thigh and if she doesn't stop leaning tighter heat into his groin she's gonna know the measure of more than just his _supposedly_ saintly patience.

He chews into his lip, shrugs into rubbing his nose against her cheek and fully enjoying the simply intimate movement that just couldn't live anywhere else in their timeline. "You hungry? When's the last time you ate somethin'?"

Her shoulders mime a half shrug at him and he knows she isn't but it's a concession given so he curls his hand up along her neck, tugs her close so he can kiss roughly against the side of her head and half hug on her, "Drink your coffee. I'll make you something."

Her hesitation seems sweet but scared and he doesn't understand completely why until it ends. "I love you, Cal. I mean - "

"Maybe run you a hot bath, huh?" He's intentionally tucking her hair behind her ear, stroking it repeatedly and distracting himself from her words because if he actually hears them, well, he's fairly sure he's gonna pleasantly implode all over her pristine kitchen tile. "Let yourself soak while I make you - "

"Did you hear me?"

Yes. No. Fucking _of course, 'yes', you beautiful and blindly innocent idiot_.

Bleedin' Christ, yeah, he'd heard her. Loud and clear as a damn bullhorn.

(Yes. No. Was there a possible combination between both responses which would, at once, tell her that he felt _that thing_ times a thousand but limit him from actually having to confess it out loud?)

"Of course I heard you, Gill," he kisses the words from in front of her ear to the tightening at the side of her mouth, rubbing the response against her lips as they part slightly. "Answering the only way I can, a'right? Emotionally stunted and vertically challenged, remember?"

He can nearly taste the coffee from her lips and tongue and it's never been so tempting a taste as it is when it's breathing in a near laugh past her lips and tantalizing along his.

"I want you to stay."

He finds the corner of her tentative smile with his lips and lets everything settle with the weight of one chaste kiss. "What'd I tell you? M'not goin' anywhere."


	2. Chapter 2

"Gill?" He's indescribably awkward, gawky and intentionally keeping his head down-turned in the few inches he's cracked open the door. "Made dinner. Gettin' cold."

And she's indescribably tired of trying to pretend that they feel nothing for or around each other.

God, she's exhausted with pretending anymore. Just completely _exhausted_.

"C'mere," she murmurs as she stares at her own reflection, tucking the towel tight on her as she vacantly studies the waves in the wetness of her hair.

"Gill - "

"Just come in here, Cal." Her voice has lost its affection for something more stagnant, not so much begging or demanding either. Just tired. "Stop being ridiculous. We're both adults."

"And I told you - "

Her eyes flick over how mixed up the colors of his eyes seem in the reflection of his concerned face and she rolls her eyes at how cautious he's being. "You won't see anything."

"Not _nothin_ '." He finally moves into the room, holding her glance in the mirror until it minutely shifts and she smiles into the fact that he's all at once lost his control. His eyes slip from her reflection to the length of her and she curls her arms up into her chest and watches him and the swaying way he watches her. "You're..."

Not quite as speechless as he is, actually. "Cal?"

"It's an awfully pretty blush, Foster," he admits all in one rush of breath and with a sort of endearing awe on him that's unexpected. "You're flushed all over."

Her laugh brings his attention back up from her collarbone and his face flattens emotionally, his usual show of cockiness easily supplants his stumbling and she shrugs as he matches her eyes in the mirror again. "The water was hot."

"Sure it was." His eyebrows lift at her in challenge as he lifts the backs of his knuckles up her bare upper arm and watches her lean into the touch. "Course it was."

Gill turns her jaw nearer her shoulder, nudging her head up in his direction with a sigh, "Promise me? You're done - "

"It's over, Gill. Wasn't really anything to begin with." He seems suitably ashamed by the admission as he steps behind her but she questions it... because a margin of him is lying to her and she can tell. It's in the flinch his eyes make as he tries to tell her that Wallowski was nothing. Not nothing. He's never been that cold.

She forgives it either way. Because not _nothing_. Not _enough_ is more apropos and she knows that.

Not _her_ is spot on correct. And, silently, they both know that.

She lets her shoulders fall back, relax into the way his height just over-reaches her when she's bare footed on her bathroom floor. His hands catch flat palmed to her upper arms at first and she can feel his hesitation, leans into it rather than away and it's just the rush of air from his lungs preceding one of his arms looping against her collarbone.

She sways backward into his awkward hugging, lets her eyes close away from watching as she turns her head into how innocent the nudge of his nose against her damp hair feels. There's a comforting warmth and safety to the feel of his shirt sleeve against flushed and still damp skin. And she knows that it's not necessarily something she's alone in feeling when he tightens that curling of safety and buries his face farther near her ear.

He breathes her in and she doesn't worry, for once, about what this moment may mean.

She doesn't waffle back and forth over whether they should be here or shouldn't, whether he means it or doesn't, whether he's her invasion or salvation.

She just notices, all at once, how sturdy and solid he is as he wraps tighter against her shoulders and the other arm loops her waist and clutches her up entirely.

Has he always been this steady and sure? Has he always been so solid perfect?

Her fingers go tentative against the flexing in his wrist and she touches along the back of his hand before digging his fingers closed up inside hers. "I want you to stay."

His nod is reflexive but there's hesitancy before he kisses the side of her head. "Told you I would."

"You made dinner?" She doesn't realize how intently he's watching her until she turns the question in his direction, flushes farther under the obviously heated way he's staring at her features. He swallows as he seems to realize she's spoken and she can't help but grin into the fact he has to shake his head out a little to answer.

"Bully beef with coconut cream."

"This is a Papuan thing?" Her nose wrinkles up at him, brows scrunching as she gives him an incredulous glance. "No snakes involved?"

A full chuckle takes over his face, surprise flicking his eyes brighter as he nods agreement into tugging her farther back into his chest. "No snakes, darling."

"Cal." Even she doesn't know why she's hesitating, not when his voice is so unerringly soft, accent full tilt and broad but so deliriously warm on her damp hair.

"C'mon." A repeat of warm little kisses litter into her hair and it's really, entirely, all she wants to focus on as he murmurs through them. They're promising, in a way. An intimate invitation and a guarding at once – a safety that she didn't necessarily expect from him but, God, she realizes that she really should have. "I went to the trouble, didn't I?"

She lets her eyes close against everything but the comfort of him. "I'm coming."

"Yeah?" One last press of his lips against her temple.

"Yeah."

* * *

He appreciates the stillness of her as she works and he douses dishes into her warm and soapy sink water, appreciates her quietness and the fact that she didn't argue with him over who should do the cleaning up in her own kitchen. He's thankful for the mingled up smell of tea and coffee and the way the sound of her typing up a couple email responses at her laptop allows him a few moments to breathe through the fact that it feels as though something has inexplicably shifted. And he's not entirely sure what, or even how. But it's big. And it's game changing. And he's not entirely sure he's prepared for it, even with sleeves rolled up and hands shoved in scalding water.

What he truly appreciates is the fact that she knows he needs the distraction, because he's having trouble swallowing and she probably knows that too.

He's terrified of what's coming next but regardless of that - whether it's just utter innocence and friendship or an absolute train wreck of poor ideas – he wants it to happen.

Doesn't mean he's not scared spitless about it.

Concerned he could be taking advantage of a situation that -

"Stop."

He exhales hard and sudden at the sound of her voice, feels the air crash across his lips as she curls up around him and hugs so tightly around his middle that she's got her cheek mashed into his shoulder and her hands fisted together against his stomach. "Almost finished. Just a few more - "

"Cal?"

How she expects him to respond with anything but "Hmm?" when she's got two fingertips rubbing against his stomach is beyond him.

"You don't _have_ to stay."

What's this, now? _Really_?

No fewer than three times she's asked him (told him) to stick around – and each time he's told her he hadn't planned on leaving anyhow? _Now_ she's lettin' herself second guess the both of them? Not bloody likely.

"Not leavin', Gillian," he disregards her nervousness with an intentionally cocky chipping back at her. "You're stuck with me til morning."

"Then stop doing the dishes, please."

She had to add a soft toned 'please' in there, eh? Had to remind him how sweet and lovely she can be?

"Cal, _please_?"And again. Like the first time hadn't been enough to break him.

He turns with damp hands lifted, forcing himself to watch her face as she shifts to let him swing around and he's astounded by how quickly she can fit herself back up the front of him if she likes. She's tip-toed herself right into him, fit against his front and already claimed the center line of his body as her own for a bit. Maybe longer by the way she crooks her head under his jaw and just leans them both back into the counter edge and cradles back around his torso. She tucks her fingertips up under the untucked and rumpled hem of his shirt to skirt his belt and find skin and he's utterly lost to estimates of time. Long as she likes, really... She can stay just this shampoo-smell-up-his-nose-and-hair-tickling-his-jaw close for infinities.

She puts her hand flat to the lower arch of his back and spreads her fingers out and he forgets he's wet near up to the elbows and digs both hands into her hair anyhow, forces her head back up long enough to look at her eyes and find out of she's telling him the goddamn truth. And by their blue, well, if she isn't... sweet Christ, then she's the best and worldliest liar he's ever fucking seen.

"We should..." have an honest discussion, he supposes. About thoughts and feelings and all the little details that get right in the middle of their way all the damn time (his fault usually, admittedly). "You wanna talk about this?"

The half smile that takes up her lips is tired seeming but endearingly patient at once, like a sort of acceptance as she sighs at him. "Not particularly."

"Thank Christ."

The relief that rushes from his lungs warms his lips and she's obviously surprised by how gently he pressed them against hers despite how quickly he's caught her mouth up with his own. It's a different kiss than the first, though no less hungry or demanding. But it's all heady exploration and his guiding hand cradling against the back of her head rather than shoving them apart. His tongue traces against hers and he finds a way to smoothly move to nipping her bottom lip between his teeth before she's moaning into the fervent gentleness.

His other hand is stroking fingertips and then knuckles on her cheek and he can't manage to entirely separate sensations so he just laughs into her louder moaning before he instinctively thrusts his tongue back into her mouth and she sucks against it. It garners a groan from him that leads directly to both his hands digging up into her hair again, slowing them with curt and chaste kisses. She can't seem to help laughing into his lips and he realizes that he's managed to taste at least five spice and coffee flavored miniature kisses off her before she knuckles into his chest playfully.

"I'm crap at feelings, Gill," he mutters into leaning his head forward, a barely there tweak of embarrassment flicking over his face before he lifts her a childishly mischievous smirking. Cheeky shit to the end, of course - his vulnerability short lived and his swagger back in force. She had to have seen that comin'.

"No, Cal, you're not," she counters with a sweet bemusement, her fingers tucking into his shirt as she rubs her lips along stubble. "I'm cold."

He grins at how conversationally small and innocent the complaint is – nothing coquettish or wily about it with her. There's nothing covert, just rushing honesty and even she seems surprised by the hollow realization. She's not playing with him - she's freezin', actually. He can feel the chill radiate over her skin and he scrubs at her arms and frowns over the fact she's just pulled on a tank and some loose silken pajama pants.

"Let's get you warm then," he offers into tugging her close again, steps her backwards toward her living room as she breathes a battered laugh into the loosened collar of his shirt.

"Not necessarily why I mentioned it."

"Do me a favor, love," Cal laughs along her hair just as she cuddles up closer into his chest. "You're practically beggin' for some necking on the couch. I've a keen sense of observation, remember?"


	3. Chapter 3

She suddenly realizes he was right, a little too late to argue and lacking the energy to do so anyhow. So, yes, she is in the mood to just snug in beside him and let him control everything in her life. He seems so very capable suddenly, so assuredly in control and maybe... maybe she should have just always left her entire body and brain and will to his assurances. Maybe she should have let them get here before all of _this_ and so many _that_ s had broken between them.

"Stop thinkin' so loud, Foster," the way his accent juts up the end of her married name always hitches her attention, always makes her lips quirk toward a smile despite herself. "You're distracting me."

Instead of fighting she just lifts her head higher into how slowly he's tracing a singular line down her throat with the tip of his finger. He seems entranced and taken by the movement, keeps it slow and intentionally tantalizing as he silently studies the reaction she can't help from flushing up on her skin. Gill lets her eyes dip closed, humming a lulled agreement as she stretches out more comfortably into her own couch cushions and then grins reflexively into how fast his mouth swoops in along her throat to follow the same line he'd drawn. The arm he'd looped on her shoulders cradles tighter, crowding her up into his leaning even as she puddles looser under the feeling of his lips and tongue against her throat and then neck.

A grating sound of appreciation rumbles up his chest as he rasps his stubbled jaw up against her cheek, "Gettin' warmer, darling?"

She laughs up a breathy noise, wedged somewhere between bemused and (not really all that) annoyed as her fingers find his rib cage. "You just... you idle at 'smug limey bastard'."

"It's a legitimate question," he chuckles through the response, jaw lifting proudly into the accusation as his eyes brighten up and he studies her mouth. "I'm bein' a gentleman. You _like_ gentlemen."

"Cal - "

"M'taking care of you," he whispers with a stripped and swaying honesty, one that clears his eyes of anything but bare affection as he wipes two knuckles down her throat and lower, watches the movement of his own hand as he disregards her interruption. "In my own egregiously charmin' way, yeah?"

Her body stretches and as her lips purse up in a blissfully playful tease and he looks as though he's prepared to get on his knees and pray gratitude to every deity he can think of just to see happiness on her. "You just wanna get in my pants."

"Aye, aye." Cal makes a purposefully leering look over her as he passes his hand down her front and presses a flat palm against her stomach. "Yours look much more comfortable."

"Cal."

"Little bit ago was you nearly had me straddled against your kitchen counter, Foster. Don't accuse me of takin' advantage here. Who was it had his head on straight then, eh?"

She isn't necessarily fooled by the seriousness of his voice, though it is primarily sincere. There's enough of a smile flirting on his lips that she can't help rolling her eyes at him.

"For _once_ in the History of Ever."

"Take minor offense at the 'limey' bit, by the way," he juts back at her while his fingertips take a swipe at her hair, brush it off her face in an echo of that same gentleness he's been using for most of the night. That terrifically terrifying gentleness that tells her... maybe this is real, maybe this is right and maybe, just maybe... this is exactly how Claire's case was supposed to end.

With him saving her somehow. With him being her first phone call, her last 'good night'.

She smiles at how adorably charming he's being because it actually is sincere. And she knows it. "But 'smug bastard' was acceptable?"

"Am what I am, darling," he shrugs off as he brushes his fingertips on her throat, a flinching frown drawing his brows together as he watches her swallow hard beneath the touch. " _Relax_ , Gill. S'just me, remember?"

"Exactly," she murmurs it like lazy kisses on his jaw, exhales and avoids his eyes as her fingers rise to press the opposite cheek. "It's _you_ , Cal."

"What is?" Bless him for how sweetly concerned he sounds, for how worried his voice goes.

"All of it." She smiles, simply and cleanly, as she says it. "Everything."

* * *

She routinely makes it impossible for him to deny loving her, even in her silence.

Especially when she looks so simply trusting in his arms and laxed-back beautiful, no, _stunning_ actually.

Lately he's had plenty of practice at imagining one proper Doctor Gillian Foster ditching demure and sinking straight into sin but not a one of his idiotic little fantasies compares to how deliriously enraptured he is by watching her. And she's barely undressed, actually. She's even still got her shirt on – though, straps down drawn on winsome shoulders and the hem rucked up from where his fingers had uncovered the smooth skin of her stomach. The silken fabric of her pants had been easily shifted off her hips but he's left her lacy little knickers on just for the delightful (and previously only imaginable) sight of his hand working inside them.

Her hips press up into the teasing way he keeps stretching his fingers near where she wants them before taunting back up her hip bone, across her pelvis, to her waist and digging back down. He's got the other arm curled securely behind her and she's managed to rest the back of her skull into his palm, letting him feel the dry warmth and light softness of her hair in his palm.

She's well warm now as she flushes and smiles at him – and even with her eyes shut and head sunken back he knows it's a smile made for him.

" _Cal_." Got his name on it, it does.

But he's got a better angel telling him to get his hands to his damn self and let her alone and apologize profusely for being a cad and a rake and a rogue and, yes, one aptly accused 'smug limey bastard'.

Better angels be damned, though.

" _Please_ , Cal." Because the whimper she lets out as her lungs stumble is just as prying as her fingers catching up the front of his shirt and jerking him down into a kiss made completely of desperation.

He buries his fingers between her thighs with the same fervor as his tongue driving between her lips and he feels her entire body flex up into him and the stretch of his touch. The hand in her hair has her stilled tightly and he ignores every second guess and question, every concern, when he feels how slick wet she is, tastes how sure she is in her kissing.

He cannot deny, much as he may try, that he is maddeningly in love with her.

Not when he finally fits a finger inside her and feels the appreciative moan that shivers through her entire body, feels tight warmth clamp against him and her staggered breath against his temple.

Beauty of her being Her (yeah, with the capital 'H', she is)...

She's not gonna ask him (because she already knows), so he doesn't necessarily need to deny it.

"Please," she shushes along his jaw and he can't continue to tease her – not when he already knows he's going to enjoy making her come all over his hand, in his mouth, far more than just teasing.

"You're a very polite woman, beggin' 'please'." His voice isn't as sure as he means it to be, not as confidently swaggering as it would be if she were any other woman. If she were a Clara or Sharon. But she's not. And his voice, despite his efforts to sound impish and confident, it completely betrays him, goes softly concerned. "Not sure you're safe with me, Foster."

She sighs hard as her body stretches gracefully, a smile making a happy home on her lips as her hips rise into how intently he's circling his thumb along her clit. "If I wanted safe I wouldn't have eaten anything you learned to cook in New Guinea."

"Oi," Cal laughs as he tweaks her clit, draws his finger from inside her and just teases touches to counter her unhappy noise of loss, "cheeky wench. Try that mouth again."

Her eyes flicker open at him and he's floored suddenly by their mischievous brightness, just as warmly sinful as the heat of her smile. "Promise."

 _Jesus_... She's bloody heart-stopping sometimes.

(Sure, and yeah, he's got two fingers where he'd never imagined he'd even... well, but thing is, she coulda said it across the conference table at work while wearing tweed head-to-toe and it'd still wrench his gut and halt his pulse.)

"You're a dangerous proposition, you are," he accuses, watches her jaw slack as he continues to slowly taunt his fingers around her clit, inside her, out of her, tickling down her thighs and back.

"You've never been one for being precautionary, Lightman." She says it breathlessly and he thinks maybe that's why he's a little dizzy all the sudden – maybe they're losing a combined reserve of oxygen – cause he can't fuckin' breathe and it seems she's having the same spot of trouble. "Maybe you should put your money where your mouth is."

He brushes his lips on her jaw, groans up the line of it to her ear while he drives two fingers inside her and lowers his voice to the same timbre as her whimpering. "You got plans for where I put my mouth, do ya?"

She's so deliciously wet to his touch and, for the life of him, he cannot fathom how that's happened - how in the bloody hell he's managed to trick her into wanting him and moaning as he pinches at her clit. It's unexplainable to his brain. He'll never completely understand it.

"That's not at all what I said." But it's damn well everything she meant, that much he can tell just by the smugly low dropping of her lashes and the charming tease in the way she lifts her jaw. By how she rakes her nails insistently against his forearm while the other hand is doing surprisingly wonderful things to the hair at the back of his head.

"Oh, really?" His head turns so he can breath the accusation near perfectly pinkened lips. "Cause s'what your face said, darling."

"Then, for once, try to just shut the hell up and listen."

For once, he's all ears, he is. That's the truth.

* * *

"Can practically hear you plottin' over the phone, love."

She loves just living amid the implicitly adoring change that takes over his tone of voice whenever he's telling his daughter how much he loves her, despite not actually saying the words.

So she stretches out farther on the couch cushions and presses her head harder into his leg, drives the break of her skull into the muscle of his thigh until his empty hand clutches into her hair and stills her movements while he chuckles out the air from his lungs. "You're broadcasting criminal thoughts, Em. I'm hearin' 'em from here."

"Leave her alone." Gill murmurs lazily as she rubs her head into the stretching his fingers make through her hair. "She'll be fine."

She ignores the paused and pained look he's no doubt shooting her in trade for closing her eyes and enjoying how tightly, desperately, he grips at her hair.

He hasn't actually let go of her, hasn't let them become completely separated, since she got him to come for her with his hands both tangled up in her hair and his face buried desperately in her throat. A leftover shaking in his shoulders and hips that had been entirely uncontrolled as she'd leaned forward in his lap and let him drive roughly up into her one last time while vicing his arms around her. Since he'd groaned such a sound of appreciative longing along her lips before kissing her with a fierceness that was damn near violent. Since his soothing hands and apologetic suggestion of sharing a warm shower had been interrupted by his pants ringing from the floor and Emily's concern for the fact he hadn't checked in after the funeral.

Her muscles ache a little and she feels worked over weak, but still somehow utterly relaxed.

There's a heat in her gut that shows no sign of burning off any time soon and she feeds it more emotional energy just by cuddling closer to him.

This is what she needs. She knows that. He's what she needs – despite everything that could wreck them sideways.

He is, has been, all she really actually needs.

"Yeah, she's a'right," he hums off gently before loosening his touch and teasing his fingers through strands of hair just so he can take teasing tugs at the ends. "Nothin' a meal and some rest won't help along."

Her smile pans affectionately wider at the realization that Emily's obviously asked about her and she curls up into him, shifting farther onto her side so that she can lean up into him instead of across him. There's a surprising softness to the lift of his hand and jaw as she cradles herself into his chest and relaxes against the flushed skin of him. He's bare chested but he's managed to tug unbuckled pants back up his hips and he smells like sweat, sex and just entirely himself (of her) and she closes her eyes again into the unexpected perfection that mix makes.

"Know where I am if there's a problem, huh? You call."

She listens to his voice as he says his goodbye, head pressed along his clavicle as his empty left hand curves her throat and closes gently around it, the pad of his thumb rubbing deep into the now loosened muscles at the nape of her neck.

"Love you." It's so easy for him to say it to Emily and she bites back against jealousy, leans closer to him rather than away because, at the very least, there's still a simple sort of truth in the way he's murmuring it along her forehead even as he's saying it to his daughter.

She shakes off the envy and just lifts her head a little in admonition, "You have to trust her."

"Trust her just fine. It's the male counterparts, ya know?" He seems to pout a little as he plucks his fingers on the fabric of her underwear, frowning on the fact she's pulled them back on. "I know exactly how they think."

"Yeah?" she teases on a whisper.

"Definitely." A half a smile swings her way just before he shrugs and takes an obvious and intentionally salacious glancing down the front of her. "For example, y'know I can see directly down this pathetic excuse for a shirt, yeah?"

Gill just snorts a near laugh through her nose as she watches his smile reach its full potential. "I'm surprised you left it on."

"Well, I've only just started, darling." He's always been a ridiculous tease to her, always innuendo and taunting and it's no different as he tugs on her nipple through fabric, his face entirely taken over by a haughty happiness and a devilish grin. "One thing at a time, yeah?"

"You're incorrigible," Gill accuses with whispering, letting his hand palm around her breast so that he can keep teasing with his thumb as he smiles down into kissing her. She accepts the slow playfulness of his lips and tongue, his nips and nibbles along her bottom lip before he chuckles into her mouth and blinks unabashed surprise, stripped down adoration, over how comfortably she's curled into him.

"Y'seemed to especially enjoy my 'incorrigible' bit, Foster." His finger makes a line down the bridge of her nose and she scrunches her eyes closed against how endearingly sweet it's meant with how nearly patronizing it seems. The fact he follows it with a rub of his lips on her forehead and groans from what seems like the very bottom of his lungs makes it seem entirely intimate and, surprisingly, loving instead.

So she shrugs honestly, lifts her head into kissing him sharply. "I really, _really_ , did."

"Plenty more where that came from, love." His fingers squeeze against her ribs and he nods as he cradles her up, thrusting his hips to get her up. "Trust me on that."

She realizes, as he shifts her up from the couch and presses her silently toward her bedroom with sure hands and hard kisses, that she already does.

She has, always has, trusted him.

And now certainly isn't the time to question that.


End file.
